I really wanted to switch from Firefox to Opera, but then I discovered that you cannot delete its 6 default search engines! They appear in the contextual menu (right-click), and you cannot get rid of them. A deal-breaker for me.
It's become totally non-usable for me! All of the last few updates won't even allow me to have it open for 15 minutes, before it goes into total meltdown! I runs up 100% of CPU usage, lots of RAM, freezes up and must be force quit, to continue using my computer! This happens on both my desktop & laptop, which have different operating systems, so I don't think it's an issue with my machine(s), but something very buggy with the browser. I sure wish they would make it more dependable...
Opera used to be special. Now it is just a wrapper around chromium.
For those that care about such things: in 2016 the Norwegian company changed ownership when a group of Chinese investors purchased the web browser, consumer business, and brand of Opera Software ASA.
Opera worked much better before I updated from Mac Catalina to Big Sur. Now when I open a tab I get a blank page for several seconds or the same if I return to an open tab. It's like having too little memory, but my Mac Mini has 16GB RAM and an i5 processor.
I don't know what's going on here. At first, it wouldn't let me install. After googling, I found out other Mac users were having the same issue, and you have to go to their download page and find the download link in tiny writing that says "offline mode" or something like that. So, download the offline version and can't access a single website. For every website it says:
"Try:
Checking the connection
Checking the proxy and the firewall"
I don't have any proxies and I'm only using the built-in Mac firewall. Into the bin it goes, waste of time.
MacUpdate Admin!!! There is a problem with this latest version - msg from both Firefox and Chrome upon trying to complete the download (and on Opera's server): 'This file may be dangerous, so Chrome has blocked it.'
Problem persists - download fails at Opera's server at around 80% finished with a "This file may harm your computer" msg - which is probably just automatic from the browser. I emailed Opera.com Support. Also, there is almost a 5MB size discrepency with their file and the one on MacUpdate.
there's a problem - both on MacUp and on Opera's site, the download is corrupted - one would hope this would have been tested on their server prior to general release notification ..........
"Version 68 is out, and it now includes access to Instagram right from the sidebar! No more keeping Instagram open in a tab! Now just click the (full color) icon! So cool! they should make a YouTube vid about it! They did!"
― no one, ever
Probably the worst browser I have ever used on my mac. Its fast, has loads of useful features, but also a bug that the company refuses to deal with. Randomly through the browsing experience it just starts blanking out your pages. So just don't bother. The company doesn't.
When it works it's great, but it's always so buggy, it drives me crazy! It will open every previously open window, and every tab in every window, which immediately runs up a ton of RAM usage, and is ridiculous, and pointless waste of resources! Today, I can't open this without it immediately freezing and running up 100% of my CPU! I even downloaded a fresh version and installed it, and it's still doing the same thing, rendering it completely unusable! Come on Opera, you can do better than this mess....
This is a good browser. Based on Chromium, but has some of its own solutions and additional functions. This is currently, in my opinion, a very good alternative to Chrome. It's fast, it also has synchronization of passwords and bookmarks. Works fine on Mac. Of course, there is no such extensive testing system as Google Chrome and sometimes there are bugs in stable versions.
What has got into the Opera browser in the past days? Earlier, I could select a word or a phrase and right-click to search with Google, but when I do so now, the browser suddenly crashes. It goes like this after I installed the most recent update. Does anyone out there know how come?
My Opera browser would not update beyond Version 62.0.3331.18 and their website only shows the .18 version as of July 4th. But this newer version says .43 so I downloaded it and installed it and all seems fine.
After many many many years I am finally giving up on Opera. I started with Version 3 which was one of their first browsers. At that time Opera invented tabbed browsing and had other very innovative stuff going on. That was why I remained a dedicated fan. But no more once I found out Opera is now Chinese owned and there are security concerns.
Quote:
"Opera started off as a decent browser, developed in Norway. However, in 2016 it was sold to a Chinese consortium for $600 million – and a lot has changed. Opera’s privacy policy explains how your data is being collected and shared when you use Opera products:"
This is my source and you can read about safe browsers here:
https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-browser/
And it's quite ironic that the next guy thorpesimon1 in the comments here is complaining that he is bothered by Chinese language stuff in his Opera browser and an annoying pop-up that auto-translates his search result to Chinese. Go figure.
Bye bye Opera, we had a lot of fun together but I'm moving on.
This is my goto, default, browser. Never had any problems. However, what's with all the Chinese language? I've altered the preferences to suite me, but the choice of search engines is limited to mostly Chinese companies. This, this explains why a lot of search results are rendered in Chinese, I suppose. And, please .., how do I get rid of that annoying pop-up window that auto-translates anything English into Chinese? The preferences need to actually work. Lastly, what happened to the really cool built-in VPN?
With the reviews all wishing a preference, it is my turn to give an honest review, as I not only belong to the opera community, but Vivaldi, and Brave as well. This morning opera updated itself, and I watched. Not a problem, crash, or excessive use of memory. Like Cliqz, and Brave, opera has most of what you need already installed. When I first installed opera, it, by using, taught me the correct way to import bookmarks; under bookmarks I simply opened that, and the bookmarks were not only imported, but put in the toolbar as well. Next, I configured opera to my needs; having cerebral palsy, I found it had a "popup tool"so that, when I copy for example, I have a window, that gives me this option. Opera is conservative on memory; it loads quick, without hiccups or any crashes PERIOD. I saw a review stating the amount of memory used; it was completely conservative, and DID NOT HOG DOWN MY SYSTEM OR MEMORY. When you use a browser as a rule, third party apps or extensions will conflict; in my case being prudent was the issue.. Unlike Vivaldi, opera comes with little or no baggage; again, it comes with in most cases, with everything you need. Opera has been upgraded many times; each update has been like bread and butter or peanut butter and jelly; smooth simple, and fast. With the use of the built in VPN, you will notice a slight slowness, but it does not bother me. There is a lot this browser has; it DOES NOT have an interface of a lot of baggage. One last thing; when I receive an update; I always do a "clean install" to get rid of the gremlins. I could go on with praising this browser, and the China issue does not bother me, because I prudently learned what is installed and where!!
AFAICT, v60 is perfectly working. I like the (selectable) dark interface.
What I still miss, though:
- profiles (there's a workaround with Terminal or programming a shortcut, but why not making it as simple as Chromium? :-o — especially now that Vivaldi finally did it!)
- customizable toolbar (you'd better not use too many extensions...)
I dislike giving a bad rating but at least an angry comment is necessary, at least as 'warning' to the developer!
I was using by time Opera Developer, happy to can contribute to its growth
BUT
suddenly the (nowadays for AL:L browsers!) NECESSARY synchronisation feature dropped.
"Ok" I said "let us stop to HELP them and let us use the 'stable' version
BUT
now it doesn't work even on it!!!
Besides this, every time I have (NECESSARILY!) to reinstall it, all my (many!) extensions goes lost and I have to make a painful reload of each of them!
So I had to stop to use Opera as default browser to switch on Firefox Nightly and Vivaldi Snapshot.
*Sigh*
After a month of using Opera as my primary browser, I REALLY would like to make it my everyday/everything browser replacing Waterfox. If for no other reason than one look at the activity monitor: After a couple days of running Opera, it's using 180mb of RAM. A couple of days running Waterfox, it's using 1.5gb...
The rub? How does Opera make money?? No one seems to know for sure. although there are PLENTY of ugly rumors (mostly pertaining to it's initial purchaser, a Chinese "consortium" Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund, although Kunlun Tech Limited is it's current largest shareholder). They boast that they made 44.7 million last year, but give no indication how exactly that was done. Even their investor PowerPoint presentation only addresses monetization in the vaguest of terms.
I'm bringing all this up because I really don't think whether or not a browser works well is the whole issue anymore. Hell, almost all browsers stem from one of two source codes, they all pretty much "work well." How exactly they work, and who they're working for is becoming more and more the issue. The person behind Waterfox makes it perfectly clear how he makes money, and that nothing is done with the data collected by the browser. Opera, despite it's technical perks (and some of those perks are quite large), gives no indication and makes no such claims. And unfortunately, that minus offsets the pluses.
First, A little bit of background. Waterfox is my everyday/everything browser for a variety of reasons (like getting the tabs under the address bar where they belong). Occasionally, it has a problem with playing video, which would force me into using my back-up browser--Chrome--which I pretty much hate, except for it's video playing.
In addition, I own a really old laptop which can't be updated beyond OS 10.6.8 and the only good browser still available for that OS is Opera 25. Which I used out of necessity until something weird happened; I ended up really liking it. So much so, that I installed the newest version on my OS 10.11 desktop and gave Chrome the big adios.
It's fast, stable, comparatively light on memory, can run both it's own extensions and also most of Chrome's, is good with video (the detach feature is really nice). has a built-in speed dial, and a built-in, free VPN (!!!).
I do have some caveats both big (you can't customize the toolbar, you can erase your browsing history, but no way to have it not saved to begin with) and small useless side bar, bookmarks all have to be one level down from the root) and super-big-time-major (no way to get tabs below address bar), so unfortunately, it's going to remain my #2. That said, it's pretty close, and I could easily see it being #1 for many.
I have a love/hate with Opera. It runs fast, doesn't eat RAM quite as much as other browsers, and can stay open, used hours every day, for a week or more, without slowing down and freezing, crashing, or demanding a reboot. However, it is oddly not compatible with certain sites, many very common (major tv networks, where it won't play videos), (some merchant/financial sites), (my favorite radio station website won't show it's players), etc...
Why it has so hard a time playing videos or streaming audio from major international sites bewilders me, and if they don't fix that soon, I'll have to move on to a different browser, as I hate having to open a second one, just to use a site here or there...
Well there appears no way to specify a start or home page. It's the only browser that works this way. Bad form. Nor is there an easy way to establish a bookmarks bar—it doesn't utilize Safari's imported bookmarks bar. Which means you have to add them one at a time using drag and drop. You can, however, move bookmarks from the Imported Bookmarks folder to the Other Bookmarks item at the highest level. I found that I didn't want to move all my Safari bookmarks to the top level so this might actually be a good thing. So setting up Opera can involve some work, depending on the amount of customization you want.
One of it's best features is that you can turn on add blocking in the Privacy preferences. This enables web pages to load blazingly fast. So overall I have to give it a high rating for performance. One other thing, my latest download of Opera, version 53, has returned to a drag and drop installation instead of that automated mess it was using. This may have happened sooner because I haven't installed an Opera update in quite a while. Anyway, its a great improvement.
J'ai perdu beaucoup de temps à comprendre pourquoi l'extension Dashlane ne fonctionnait plus sur Opera (sur Mac OS 10.11): par la faute de la mise à jour automatique d'Opera et de sa version 53 qui coupe la communication entre Dashlane et son plugin (via l’extension « Install Chrome Extensions »)! J'ai donc trouvé (difficilement) sur le Web comment désactiver cette mise à jour automatique : https://forums.opera.com/topic/14028/how-to-disable-auto-update-on-osx, puis rechargé la version 52 qui résout le problème. Je m'étonne qu'une mise à jour d'Opera soit incompatible avec une extension aussi importante et populaire que Dashlane. Je pense que je ne pourrai plus perdre autant de temps en cas de nouveau bug si gênant et que je changerai de navigateur ------------------------------------------- I lost a lot of time understanding why Dashlane extension was no longer working on Opera (on Mac OS 10.11): due to the automatic update of Opera and its version 53 which cuts the communication between Dashlane and its plugin (via the extension "Install Chrome Extensions")! So I found (with difficulty) on the Web how to disable this automatic update: https://forums.opera.com/topic/14028/how-to-disable -auto-update-on-osx, then reloaded version 52 which solves the problem. I am surprised that an update of Opera is incompatible with an add-on as important and popular as Dashlane. I think I can not no more wasting so much time in case of new bug so annoying and I will change broswer.
After this update, Opera is asking for access to, "Your confidential information stored in 'Opera Safe Storage' in your keychain." What's that? Why is this now appearing?
I've used this version (52.0) for less than a day but am impressed by what I see so far. I especially appreciate the way it handles bookmarks. During installation, it imported my Safari bookmarks in a blink and organized them in a way that's far more useful. More experience with it will reveal any performance issues. I really enjoy the contemporary interface and choice of dark theme.
Opera is unique in providing a full Chromium experience, complete with Chrome add-ons, while also allowing the use of 1Password, which doesn't work with Chromium (since straight Chromium is unsigned).
Quite nice update! I enjoy very much the new fonction "suggest" in the new tab view. I don't like the new tab view in other navigators which are completely based on user browsing data. The Opera way of version 49 is a very nice middle ground for me!
Deleted—never could figure out why the app hijacked all my email functions (in sharing, etc.); there didn’t appear to be a setting that turned this on or off in Opera, and resetting my launch services database didn’t solve the problem. After Opera deletion, all is back to normal. I also didn’t see anything special about the browser features compelling enough to have yet another broswer. Sticking to Safari/Tech Preview and Firefox.
I also don’t trust the VPN service. Since this whole company is now Chinese-owned, I *really* don't trust them as a VPN service. (FWIW, I used SurfEasy VPN, which is what the Opera app incorporated. It worked, but the hit on throughput speeds (VPN overhead) was devastating. After it changed ownership, I dropped it (paid version) and wiped it off my machine.
Works fine since the last updates. A thing called OperaHelper ruins my Mac Pro (10.9.5) taking near 60% of CPU...! Opera is waiting in my trash for now..
Hmmm... Opera is no longer a drag n' drop app like Chrome, Firefox, etc. and has an "Opera Installer". I DO NOT LIKE THIS. Sorry, but I'm not comfortable with a shady Chinese company installing undocumented stuff on my Mac to run a web browser when it should be a simple drag n' drop install like it used to be before they were sold to the Chinese.
I don't trust this. What's up with the installer? What does it install and what do the components do?
Still hate the automatic installer with it's hidden presets than you can overlook and forget to disable. Bad juju. It says to users that we hate you don't trust you to make informed choices about those presets. Even though I like the browser well enough, I have nothing but contempt for the developers who have nothing but contempt for me.
It was hard but I finally found one thing to criticize in Opera! ;-)
The tool bar is not fully customizable: the only thing you can do is go to the extensions pane and make them visible or not.
Something I don't get is why amongst all the Chromium based browsers is it the only one that can't use Chrome's extensions? Luckily it has its own "addon store" where you find most of the addons you need.
On the good sides , it's the most compatible browser for anything related to video or audio players. The free unlimited VPN is working perfectly.
The cherry on the cake would be to have multiple profiles, the way Chromium manages them!
So, I find it nearly the perfect browser! — at least until Firefox becomes multiprocess, in november... ;-)
For some reason I've used Chrome a lot past couple of years (peer-pressure?!) and I've now switched to Opera (that I did use quite a bit years ago). It is so much faster than all my other browsers, have no idea how they do it.. but this thing is way underrated.
